'I— Yes,' she says too quickly, and I frown at her, catching Morgan's eye.
Something isn't right, but if she doesn't want to talk to us now, then we'll wait and ask her later when we’re in Kitore.
Once this has been taken care of.
I turn back to Locke. He's standing where he was against the tree, just watching me.
'What's happening?' Bryn asks, and I grit my teeth.
I know what must have happened at Gwen's house. Bryn needed what she sometimes does, and neither Morgan nor me were there to sate it, so she had to choose Locke.
And I blame him because he’s the one who said we should go in opposite directions to look for our human, while conveniently choosingthe right way.
'You knew where she'd be,' I accuse.
He shakes his head.
'No,' he says, and it's muffled by his hand over his jaw, across his mouth. There's blood streaming from between his fingers. 'I didn't know for sure.'
'But you knew something. How?'
'Because I've been watching her,' he snarls, wiping the blood with the back of his hand. 'Of course I have. As if I'd let her go anywhere by herself,especially with Voss.'
Morgan lets out a sound of fury. ‘We didn’t want to either, but we can’t leave Halsford’s wards. You can though, you prick. Kept that quiet, didn’t you?’
‘Aye, I can,' he hisses, ‘and you should be glad that I was able to! Bryn has enemies, the same as us. And I’d sooner trust a wraith with her wellbeing than Calder or his lapdog, so I made sure I was nearby. They never knew it.’
'That's where you've been over these past days?' I ask. 'Not with Dane and Lia talking strategy?'
He stands silent and stoic.
'More lies,' I hiss. 'Gods, do you even know how to stop?'
His jaw works, but he says nothing. His eyes flash in anger.
'Go on, then,' I say. 'Argue. Tell me your side of it.'
'What side is there to tell?' he snarls. 'You've already decided what I am.'
'Because of what you have done!' Morgan yells. 'What you did to Bryn. What you did to us.'
'I've said that I’m sorry a hundred times. I know what I did was wrong.'
'Do you?' I snarl. 'Because you lie even by omission, it seems! You knew about the village wards. You knew you could leave them, yet you said nothing.'
Locke takes a deep breath. ‘Of course I can leave the wards. There are ways, as a mage, if one knows how. Just as Dane can. Just as Voss can.'
'Why did you send us in another direction when you knew where Bryn would be?'
'I didn't know for sure.'
'But you did want to be the one to find her.'
'Yes.'
'Why? Did you know that she was having another attack coming on? Did you know that she would need you?'
'What?' His brow furrows. 'No, of course not. That's not what I?—'
